Coeds Ruining the Nation: Women, Education, and Social Change in Postwar Japanese Media by Julia C. Bullock (review)

Abstract

Published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute HJAS 81 (2021): 341–345 commercial sector accounted for 20 percent of the Japanese working population, and public officials and freelance workers accounted for more than 40 percent.7 Thus, although Azuma’s introductory chapter provides detailed theoretical discussions about settler colonialism in Japan in comparison to that of Europeans and Americans, his examination of some commercial crops (such as coffee and pineapples) is insufficient to support a complete reinterpretation of the concept of Japanese settler colonialism. Settler colonialism in Taiwan was multidimensional and complicated: the pineapple and coffee industries cannot represent the whole picture. Despite some of my reservations about the theorization of settler colonialism in Japanese imperial territories, In Search of Our Frontier is undoubtedly an important work for students and scholars of Asian American studies, migration, and modern Japanese history. I would also recommend this book for students of US history, even for those with little interest in Japanese history. In successfully presenting the trans-Pacific history between the US and the Japanese empire, Azuma’s book offers a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds. It potentially opens up a new path in the study of Japanese American history.